A Systemic Review and Meta-analysis of the Leading Pathogens Causing Neonatal Sepsis in Developing Countries.

Background: Neonatal sepsis is one of the major public health problems globally, particularly, in developing countries. , , , and are the common pathogens for neonatal sepsis in developing countries. However, the pooled estimate of common pathogens causing neonatal sepsis in developing countries is still unknown. Therefore, this study is aimed at computing the pooled proportion of the leading cause of pathogens for neonatal sepsis in developing countries.

Methods: We strictly followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systemic Reviews and Meta-analysis guidelines to report this systematic review and meta-analysis. PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CINAHL, Science Direct, and other search engines such as Google Scholar, Africa Journals Online, and Hinari were used to obtain studies related to the leading cause of pathogens for neonatal sepsis in developing countries. The search was done from October 1 to December 30, 2018, by considering both published and gray literature. Studies were evaluated based on the PRISMA guideline checklist by using their titles, abstracts, and full texts. Studies were extracted using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and STATA software version 14 was used to analyze data. Heterogeneity between studies was checked based on Cochran's -test and the corresponding statistic test.

Results: The pooled prevalence of the leading cause of pathogens of neonatal sepsis in developing countries were (26.36%), (23.22%), (23.22%), and (15.30%). Common pathogens were varied across regions; for instance, pooled isolated was 25.98% in Africa, 16.62% in Asia, and 36.71% in Latin America, and was 29.80% in Africa, 23.21% in Asia, and 22.00% in Latin America. Also, was 27.87% in Africa and 18.28% in Asia, and was 22.97% in Asia and 9.43% in Africa.

Conclusions: This study highlights that the more prevalent common isolated pathogens in developing countries were , , , and , , and pathogens were predominantly high in Africa as compared to other Asian and Latin American countries. At the same time, was more prevalent in Latin America compared to other regions. is more dominant in Asia as compared to Africa and Latin America.